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Climate Change & Disappearing Glaciers, Festivals, Sacred Rituals, Religion, Peru's Andes Mountains, Traditions + Rituals, Water
Three-faced Ukuku, Guardian of the Glacier
In Andean culture, ukukus represent mythical bear-men who guard the glaciers at Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage and assist in other village rituals. Each year, young men volunteer to serve as their village's ukukus and bring health and prosperity to the community. Jorge photographed this ukuku at the June 2006 Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage. They wear masks to protect themselves from the cold, but this ukuku was sporting one with three faces. In his hand, he holds a whip, used to fight the condemned souls who haunt the glacier and to punish pilgrims who drink alcohol at the festival, which is forbidden.
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“Soy Andina” Now on YouTube
Back in 2008, I befriended a New York filmmaker who had made an intriguing documentary set in my newly adopted country. Mitch Teplitsky's "Soy Andina" traces the journeys of two New York women who travel to Peru to connect with their heritage through dance.
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Vote for Best Just Posts of 2009!
A few days ago, I received a pleasant surprise: two of my blog posts have been nominated for the Best of 2009 Just Posts. Just Posts for a Just World is a highly readable monthly roundtable of blog posts on social-justice issues from around the world. It’s curated by Holly at Cold Spaghetti and Alejna at Collecting Tokens, who wade through the blogosphere each month to find personal posts that “speak to the same thing — the lifting up of our planet and all that inhabit it.” The typical Just Post is candid and compassionate and outspoken, and reads like a real person speaking his/her own mind. I like that. I’m…
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Video: “Peru’s future depends on mountains”
[Note: This MSNBC video is no longer available as of August 2020] Jorge Recharte, Andes program director for the Mountain Institute, eloquently explains the special bond between Peru’s people and her mountains. This relationship has shaped 5,000 years of culture in both the coast and the sierra and will determine Peru’s future, says Recharte in this video featured on msnbc.com: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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Video: In Peru, melting glaciers lead to water wars
Here is the link: In Peru, melting glaciers lead to water wars Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy The video aired on NBC Nightly News on December 8. I was the field producer for the NBC news team.
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Peru’s Melting Glaciers on NBC News Tonight, 6:30 p.m.
Tonight NBC Nightly News airs a special report on Peru’s melting glaciers and their downstream effects. (Click here for times and stations across the United States.) Tune in to see footage of dying Pastoruri Glacier and to hear correspondent Anne Thompson talk with experts on how Peru is struggling to adapt to a world without glaciers, a scenario that may be realized within the next quarter century. Kudos to the NBC environmental news team for bringing this important story to the attention of U.S. viewers during Copenhagen 15. What happening in Peru is dramatic evidence of the catastrophic effects of global warming and rapid climate change. And although people in North America…
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Goodbye, Pastoruri
Once upon a time, the easiest way for a visitor to touch ice in Peru was to climb the tourist trail to Pastoruri Glacier, a flat-topped glacier 70 km south of Huaraz. Roads from the highway made the glacier easily accessible to daytrippers, and even though its peak is a staggering 5,200 meters above sea level, the trek upward is relatively gentle, as far as glaciers go. If things got really rough, you could always rent a burro or a horse in the parking lot and haul yourself up that way. Not now. No longer. There are no burros for hire at Pastoruri because the glacier is officially off-limits to…
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Off to Huaraz Again — Puya Raimondi in Bloom
Tomorrow morning I fly to Huaraz to help out with a U.S. network shoot about melting glaciers in Peru. I’ll be taking the group to Pastoruri, which I didn’t get to visit the last time I was in Huaraz, and I’m looking forward to seeing the once-mighty glacier up close. And, as it happens, something else is happening up there as well that’s rather amazing. The van driver that we’re hiring tells me that hundreds of puya raimondi are in bloom now. This is the rare bromeliad found only in the Andes and known as the “living fossil.” Puya raimondi flower only once in their lives, after many years, then die…
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Finnish Designer Trees Bear Fruit in Andes
Last week I dropped in on a very cool Finnish design exhibit being hosted at Lima’s ICPNA center. “Northern Stars” showcases more than 100 years of innovative design from Finnish designers and design firms such as Marimekko, Arabia, Nokia and Metso. El Híjo and I were hoping to catch sight of some Moomintrolls, the eccentric woodland characters invented by Finnish children’s author Tove Jansson, but as it happened there weren’t any velvet-snouted trolls lolling about the art gallery. There were, however, some playful tree-shaped room dividers, rather like props from a children’s fantasy, that caught my eye. “The Tree,” as it’s called, is a piece of functional art created by the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio (creator…
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Soy Andina Film Premieres on New York PBS Tonight
Cynthia Paniagua (R) in Chincha (photo: Florencia Castello)Peruvian culture will get a major public-awareness boost tonight when New York PBS stations broadcast the awarding-winning documentary Soy Andina. (Sept. 10, 10 p.m.; check local listings. The film airs throughout the country starting Oct. 11.) Soy Andina is one of eight documentary films selected for the new season of Latin Public Broadcasting’s VOCES series on National Public Television, introduced by actor Edward James Olmos — and the first-ever film in the series about Peru. Soy Andina tells the intersecting stories of two New Yorkers – a modern/hip-hop dance dancer raised in Queens, and a folkloric dancer from the Andes – who embark on dance odysseys through Peru to search…
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Deadly Negligence: Peru’s Red Cross & Cold Deaths in Andes
At last count (mid August), 514 Peruvians had died of pneumonia brought on by extreme cold this year, most of them children under five. Most reasonable people would call that an emergency. Not Peru’s Red Cross, however. In a bulletin issued August 4, 2009, the Peruvian Red Cross (PRC) issued a general statement about the cold deaths in Puno, noting the low temperatures, the rise in pneumonia cases and the deaths of “113” children (a number much lower than that cited by other news sources in early August). After low-balling the number of deaths, the bulletin explained that the PRC “has been assisting the affected people with medicines, blankets and food items. Additionally, the…
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Government Extends State of Emergency in 21 Regions; More Children to Die from Cold in August
[Photo: These two kids live near Upis in southern Peru, where children are dying of extreme cold brought on by climate change. More deaths are predicted for August, typically the coldest month of the year in the high Andes. Photo c. Barbara Drake 2008]Peru is finally acknowledging that the humanitarian crisis caused by extreme cold in the Andes isn’t going away; the problem is getting worse. A state of emergency declared by the Peruvian government in July has been extended two additional months in 21 Andean regions, reported Isabel Guerra yesterday in Living in Peru: The Peruvian government extended today for another 60 days the state of emergency in 21 regions, due…
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Citizen Journalists Respond to Cold Deaths in Andes
These are the things I think of when I read the news reports on deaths in the highlands -- the humble, hard-working people who live at such a remove from the "civilized" world and who can be helped at not that much cost, if only there are willing souls to climb the mountain paths and meet them halfway.
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Peru’s Politicians Lock Horns with Scientists, Deny Crisis as Water Shortage Looms
Above: Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson gives two good reasons why loss of Peru’s glaciers is “alarming”; July 7 Adapting to a World without Glaciers, Lima (photo by Jorge Vera 2009) By Barbara R. Drake LIMA, PERU: Peru’s Minister of the Environment Antonio Brack Egg told international glacier experts and other climate specialists last week that Peru cannot be expected to avert the country’s pending water shortage on its own and that regional and local administrations must bear responsibility. Peruvian Minster of the Environment Antonio Brack Egg at Adapting to a World without Glaciers conference, July 7, 2009, Lima Peru (photo Jorge Vera 2009) “When we speak about these subjects…
